Biography

Wyvill was descended from Sir Marmaduke Wyvill who married one of the coheirs of Constable Burton and sat for Ripon in 1553. His father was a commissioner of array and raised men, arms, horses and money for the King’s forces, although he was too infirm to fight himself. On an estate of £671 p.a. (excluding £300 p.a. settled on Wyvill), he was fined £1,343. Wyvill’s mother was a Catholic recusant who brought up her daughters in the same faith. But Wyvill himself was so strong a Protestant that he was appointed to the county committee in 1645 and listened appreciatively to Edward Bowles’s Presbyterian sermons in York Minster during the Interregnum. He was first returned to Richard Cromwell’s Parliament for Richmond, six miles from his home, and hence may have been considered eligible for the general election of 1660 under the Long Parliament ordinance. He was returned with his brother-in-law James Darcy. Lord Wharton marked him as a friend, but he was not an active Member of the Convention. He was named to the committee of elections and privileges, and on 16 July during the debate on religion spoke for laying aside the question. After the recess he was added to the committee for the post office bill, but this is the total extent of his activity, and he never stood again. An active magistrate and proselytizer, he brought over several of his relatives from the Church of Rome, and published two books to ease their scruples over the royal supremacy. He was buried at Masham on 8 Feb. 1681. His grandson, the fifth baronet, was returned for Richmond as a Tory in 1695.3